CJ Follini

CJ Follini is an American businessman. He is the founder of several alternative investment funds in commercial real estate, fine art, and private credit. He is also the founder of the nonprofit financial education platform Noyack Wealth Club.

Career
The son of Italian immigrants, Follini career began when his father, the chief executive officer of a large construction company, suffered a serious stroke and he had to take over the firm.

From 1988 until 2020, he was chief investment officer of a investment syndicate of 9 ultra high-net worth families that focused on alternative investments. He speaks regularly regarding commercial real estate, edtech, venture capital, and consumer packaged goods. In 2020, he sponsored Noyack Logistics Income Trust, real estate investment trust.

Follini redeveloped former St. Agnes Hospital Campus in White Plains, New York, purchased at a foreclosure auction for $22,000,000. In 2007, he announced one the largest active adult housing developments in North America. The 730000 sqft, $250M campus includes assisted living and medical office buildings.

He built and sold a $300M Noyack Medical healthcare real estate portfolio, returning a 23% IRR. He founded Guns for Hire Production Centers (GFH). Follini conceived and designed GFH's 700,000+ square feet of digital media centers in New York, Miami, Vancouver, Toronto, Austin, and Los Angeles, winning the 1998 Crain's magazine Small Business Award. He redeveloped One Hanson Place, and was named GlobeSt.com Real Estate Forum Industrial Influencer of 2021.

Content production
Follini's first film production, Sling Blade, won Best Adapted Screenplay at the 69th Academy Awards.

In 2011, Follini created and directed Art/Trek NYC, which was broadcast on cable by NYC Media and Ovation. Art/Trek is a television documentary that explores New York City's five boroughs to showcase emerging artists. Traveling in the show's signature mobile art gallery – a converted recreational vehicle, nicknamed the ArtV – Follini, also the host, joins a different borough-specific co-host in each episode to meet a rising artist who's on the verge of breaking into New York City's art scene. Each artist puts together an impromptu art show in the ArtV and invites residents from their neighborhood to view the work and share their opinions about it on camera. One of the five artists is selected to have their own gallery show, which is featured in another episode.

In 2008, Follini was the executive producer for the documentary Burning the Future: Coal in America, the story of mountaintop removal mining and its disastrous effects on the environment. It was a finalist of the International Documentary Association's 2008 Pare Lorentz award.

In 2000, Follini produced the short film Bullet in the Brain, which was the winner of the 2001 Universal Studios/Hypnotic Film Award.

Recognition
Follini was co-chairman of the board of directors of the HERE Arts Center in SoHo, which honored him with the HEREmanitarian Award in June 2014. He was the winner of 1998 Crains Small Business Award for Gun For Hire Digital Media Centers.